


A Broken Youth

by lucarionme



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Gore, sads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 15:38:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4397525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucarionme/pseuds/lucarionme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Grima's death, Ricken finds himself flashing back to imagery of war. If only he could get his mind off of death...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Broken Youth

**Author's Note:**

> Literally the first thing I'm posting is FE and I don't even like FE. This was a request from a friend for some angst so there's a brief cameo from her Avatar. This probably went a little over "angst" but lol who cares right? Let me know if there are any errors. I write at night and QUITE LITERALLY cannot see my mistakes even if I read it over. (Alternate title: Sadpoopoo)

The pathetic fire burns on, but it's hardly enough to keep the remaining Shepards warm from the night wind. They gathered by one of the last few forests in the wasteland of the dragon's wrath to spread their final rations in celebration. They pass their bread and sing and wipe the blood from each other's faces. However, there's still a burning guilt at the back of their minds as they celebrate. Gregor, Sully, Donnel, just a few of the bodies found beaten, bleeding, and lifeless if even found at all. The drinks, the bread, the oats, only a distraction from the realities of a won war. The fire burns on, yes, and so do the Shepards, but the strongest burn of all is within Freya herself. She feels deep down in her gut that a mistake was made and that this fight was for naught, but she dare not bring it up to her party.  
In the uncomfortably quiet gathering, she finds Ricken to be zoning out, grasping at his cup in silent agony. He's young. Not cowardly, but young. Freya knows there's a difference and what war can do to a child like him. No matter how hard he may try, he's still rattled to the bone as they all are. She seeks to comfort him so at least he, between the two of them, will be a little more comfortable. Besides, he worked his fingers to dust, he doesn't deserve to feel like this.  
"Ricken..." She speaks with honest concern for the normally bright-eyed boy.  
"Are you ok?"  
His back and arms tense at the whisper of his name from behind, but his fearful gaze becomes one of casual embarrassment within seconds.  
"Ah, uh, yea..."  
He stares into his drink before hoisting it up towards her.  
"C-Congrats Freya! You guys did it!"  
Freya rests a clammy hand against Ricken's sleeve and gives a light squeeze at his blatant exclusion.  
"We did it, Ricken. We fight together, remember?"  
He shakily smiles and inclines his head to the small talk. It's meaningful, but the image of Donnel being knocked to the ground and stomped down into oblivion like an ant makes him feel small as well. He was the one to see Donnel go down. A boy almost about his age with his head crushed and-  
"Ricken!"  
He found himself focused with empty intent on the ground, only to be brought back with a few of Freya's fingers splaying themselves across his muffled field of view.  
"Ricken, do you need a break, dear?" She looks deeply into him and, quite frankly, almost cries herself.  
The boy's eyes are bound to fear, possibly permanently stained with the horrors of war. They've sunken into sorrowful, brown pits and with gritted teeth she must look away, if only done subtly as to not upset him further.  
"U-Uh... little Ricken!.."  
She glances past him to Henry's empty seat on the log, her mind furiously trying to find some bullshit distraction for Ricken. Of course he's left with his own thoughts when his best friend is off without him. Of all the Shepards, he for some reason took comfort in the morbid one. Freya was happy for them, though. Henry is a damaged but nice boy. Who could he find solace in if not Ricken, and vice versa? She could always count on them to ground each other.  
"Henry is still out collecting kindling. You should go help him, yea? The more the merrier!"  
She looks back to the other and prays her effort isn't fruitless. As Ricken rubs the smoke from his eyes, he sets his cup down and stands. It only disrupts the group as much as each crackle of the fire does. Freya gives him a little bit of direction to start him off, and as he shuffles away into the woods gripping his familiar tome, she presses a dusty pair of hands to her face to cradle and direct the flow of silent tears she's been holding back all night away from the sight of the party.  
Each crunchy step Ricken takes seems to echo through the deep, dark expanse of the forest. He has to press the hand that isn't gripping his book against rough bark and rock to avoid tripping on the tangled roots and plantlife that spring from the floor. This night has a disturbing air of nothingness about it. It's as if the world was trying to be unnaturally hot, but the regular freezing winds of the night completely negated its effects and left behind a definitively negative space. Not to mention the smokey green smog floating knees' length off of the ground as a lake. It's as uncomfortable on the skin as it is in Ricken's racing little brain. The leaves and grasses remain still, so any movement may very well be something malevolent hiding in the branches prepared to pounce or slinking along the ground waiting to claw at his achilles. He has enough confidence in his own defensive abilities, however, that he valiantly continues forward calling wearily out to his friend. He can only pray the unpredictable mage doesn't appear from behind him and literally frighten him to death. Henry would get quite a kick out of such a thing, but surely he would be resentful later, right? Over his best friend dying in some fault of his own? As friendly as they are towards each other, Ricken goes through fits of thinking too deeply into Henry's morality and disturbing himself, almost to the point where he cannot even look upon his friend until he pushes the thoughts back. The others try to convince him that Henry is in his own world entirely and that what he feels and how he thinks is beyond the young boy's understanding. Yet Ricken was the only one paying close attention to after-battle Henry. He caught his friends murmured chants of "Soon, soon enough." the further on they pressed towards Grima's demise. The way his smile slowly and almost unnoticeably faded into something empty. Something disturbingly neutral that made it seem like he had altogether left the planet for something deep within his head. Ricken openly fears that his friend is a ticking time-bomb, and all of these frightening truths scramble from his brain at the ear piercing squawk of a pained crow.  
Well, it wasn't Henry to scare him to death, but one of the Mage's crows. Ricken tries to calm himself down at the sight of the bird shaking its stomped tail back into place. In anger, it flies away into a small clearing to join the rest of its murder. The boy squints through the fog at the mass of birds all perched on and around the same log, completely engulfing the thing like a great blob of ashen ichor. He has never seen Henry's birds when they aren't in his presence before. He must be lurking about somewhere, arms stocked with firewood. Ricken creeps toward the group with playful intentions to ask them of his friend, well aware that they will fly off in a great horde that would surely get Henry's attention. With a quick, aggressive step forward, the congregation noisily flees into the surrounding trees. Their perch is revealed, and a paralyzed little boy hits the ground to retch and purge when his throat clenches to quickly cry out.  
The flapping of the crows' wings hit him with the stench of blood and bile coming from the open stomach of their master. Henry's visible skin is ruined with lacerations from claw and beak. The crows had picked badly at the soft tissue of the boy's face, leaving him with one nostril and a handsome chunk of cheek missing. Unbelievably, his hand continues to monotonously scrape across the ground and at the sight of Ricken, his teeth grind ever so slightly. One of the braver birds of the bunch tries to return to its meal, but is met with a furious, screaming, sobbing Ricken dead set on crushing the beast's ribs with his fist. His fit of rage is broken by the sudden grasp Henry has of his arm and the slow, gurgling "Ssstop." that leaves his mouth along with a river of pent up blood. He wails in terror at the sudden realization of being suspended so close above his best friend's leaking innards. "Ssstop." is repeated over and over, "Ssstop stop stop!", until a boney, cold, bloodied hand silences Ricken itself.  
"R-Ricken, you didn't give me any time t-to get ready! I'm a mess, nya hahh!" His throat bubbles with liquid as he laughs.  
"H-Henry! What happened? Who d-did this to you? I'll kill them! I'll-!"  
This time, merely a finger stops him. It trails down the boy's lips and chin as Henry gathers his failing breath.  
"Then y-you would kill me? It w-would be a b-big help. It didn't quite-... go as planned. It-"  
Henry hisses in pain as a few crows sneak their way in between them to pick at the raw flesh.  
"I n-never thought it would hurt t-too much for me!"  
"Henry! Henry, why? Why would you- Why H-Henry?" hiccups the younger of the two in blatant shock.  
He frantically wipes at Henry's torn face, wiping blood and tears and sweat and hair away from his remaining features. He refuses to look down in fear of again heaving at the sight of his friend.  
"Ricken. That war. That war was the end for me."  
Ricken interrupts him with question after pained question. Why? He was injured but not like this! Still alive! The fading boy shifts to make his breathing easier, never once releasing his grip from Ricken's quivering arm.  
"The childhood whippings, the fights, the murder. It was- it was all great fun. But it was all just a distraction. Like kids and their stupid games. I needed to distract myself from what I really am." He has to cough up blood and mucus to clear his throat.  
He stops to find the right words to use in this situation. During this least sensible time, he's trying not to upset the boy more than he already is.  
"I'm just a weapon, dear Ricken. I've never had friends, family, real in- interests, even the most basic of emotions in my heart."  
"T-That's not true! You're my best friend! Henry, you're my best friend! You humored all of my- my dumb shit! That's all it was! I'm- I'm young and s-stupid but you listened to me."  
"None of that matters now, friend. Yet in my eyes, by j- judgment of my most feral instinct I've finally served a purpose worth dying a delicious, bloody death for." His foggy eyes wander away from Ricken and towards the dark of the woods...  
"But I didn't die." Then snap back.  
"My life is finally over but-" His free hand tears at the dewey grass in agony. "I'm not dead!"  
He begins to chuckle at his outburst, this soon evolving into full out laughter.  
"Isn't t-that ironic, Ricken! Or maybe I've been dead all along!"  
The uncanny laughing continues until it breaks up into sobs, something Ricken's never seen from Henry before. He tries to back away from his friend's disturbing smile, but his arm is still within the other's grasp.  
"My crows don't even want me as much as I expected them to! We- We were bonded!" As he exclaims, he lifts his shirt further to expose his chest.  
This is some of the only skin left untouched, yet it's not pure. There are still many marks from the birds, however scarred over they may be.  
"They served me and now I must s- serve them! But they refuse my offering of flesh!"  
"B-By the gods Henry, you're-!"  
"Insane?"  
One bird does still come and perch upon its master's shoulder at his command.  
"What an accusation to p- point at your dear friend, Ricken. No... It was a decent guess... The way they'd pick at me in my sleep like nightmares and leave marks for the morning."  
The crow pokes at the bloodied fingers Henry dangles in front of its face.  
"But they can still have me. My body will stay. But you must go."  
Ricken snaps out of his trance, clenching his jaw shut and hissing out, "I'm not leaving you like this."  
"Ricken, I'm already gone-"  
"No."  
"Ricken-"  
"No! I'm not leaving you after you didn't leave me! I-I was still eating and everyone left! But you stayed! You stayed behind and you saved me from my fears and apprehensions! Everyone thinks you're a stone cold beast but they don't know you like I do!"  
Ricken's voice starts to crack, his tears returning.  
"Please..."  
The boy holds his breath when he hears this. A sad, weak plea for death. Henry finally releases the grip on his friend's arm and slides something out from behind his slumped over form for him to take. A book. No, Henry's spell tome. There's a handprint worn on the leather cover from constant use and the edges are frayed and torn. He managed to keep most of the blood from getting to it other than a little stain on the spine.  
"This book is done." He slides the tome further towards the speechless child.  
"But yours still has plenty of pages, Ricken."  
All he can do is silently plead, mouthing "No, no, no." and shaking his head to try to stop the tears.  
"From birth I was taught that I was worth nothing but my magic. Y- You... still have plenty of time to prove yourself as much more than your's. I will fade away in peace and you... will get taller."  
He gives a windless chuckle as as Ricken squeezes him into a tight embrace for the last time...  
Young Ricken leaves the forest that night with great sorrow in his heart, an entirely new outlook on his life, a new tear stained tome and the tail feather of a crow nestled behind his ear.


End file.
